Alps shooting: former policeman arrested as final al-Hilli family photo emerges

Former policeman named locally as Eric Devouassoux arrested over 2012 al-Hilli
family shooting in French Alps

Saad al-Hilli with wife and two daughters Photo: BFMTV

By Rory Mulholland, Alexandra Williams and Claire Carter

9:28PM GMT 18 Feb 2014

A former policeman named locally as Eric Devouassoux has been arrested by French Police in the Alps murder mystery case as the last photo of the family has emerged, taken minutes before they were gunned down.

The 48-year-old, described as a “taciturn mountain man” and said to have left the police force last year, was found to have a number of weapons in his home – less than two miles from the site of the quadruple murder.

The weapons were seized by police searching his home on Tuesday.

His arrest comes as a final family photo of Saad al-Hilli, a British-Iraqi engineer and his wife Iqbal - who were both killed - with their two young daughters, captured their last moments together while on holiday in the French Alps. The two girls survived the shooting in September 2012, with one hiding beneath her mother’s dead body for eight hours.

The photo is thought to have been taken by Mrs al-Hilli’s mother, Suhaila al-Allaf, who was also killed, just 13 minutes before they were shot, French news channel BFMTV reported.

Footage taken from a helicopter shows the body of Sylvain Mollier, a French cyclist, who was also killed after apparently stumbling onto the scene, lying next to the family’s BMW after the shooting in a remote road in Chevaline near Annecy.

Tuesday’s arrest is the first to be made in France and has been seen as a breakthrough, taking place 18 months after the murders.

The French man arrested was a former municipal police officer in the town of Menthon-Saint-Bernard, the local prosecutor confirmed to AFP.

"The man, if it is indeed the same person we think, was dismissed in June" from the police force, Antoine de Menthon, the mayor of Menthon-Saint-Bernard said.

He is the second person to be arrested after Mr al-Hilli’s brother, Zaid al-Hilli, had his bail cancelled by Surrey Police last month because there was not enough evidence to charge him. The brothers had allegedly fallen out about their inheritance.

The man was arrested at his home in Lathuile and taken to a police station in Chambery for questioning. The GIGN, a special operations unit of the French Armed Forces, was involved.

Lathuile is the site of another unsolved murder after a woman was shot in her home, at a campsite, in November last year. It is also where William Brett Martin, the Briton who discovered the murders while on a bike ride, has a holiday home.

Also on Tuesday, French police investigators were searching the nearby town of Talloires, scanning the ground with a metal-detector and shovels. A police source said the operation in Talloires was linked to Chevaline.

Surrey Police said the latest arrest came from French and not UK investigations.

Eric Maillaud, the local prosecutor, said the man was arrested following information from witnesses after a photo-fit image of a biker seen nearby was released in November.

He said about 40 “useful” witness accounts were being verified and Tuesday’s arrest “may not be the only one”.

“For the moment it is impossible to say whether he played any role in the shooting. It is simply the result of the release of the photofit but it is strictly impossible to say any more at this stage,” he told the Telegraph.

“It could turn out that he has absolutely nothing to do with this affair,” said Mr Maillaud. He said he would hold a press conference at 1pm (UK time) on Wednesday to brief journalists on latest developments.

The man can be held in custody for up to four days.

The al-Hillis, of Surrey, arrived in the area on September 1 and stayed in a campsite near Lake Annecy, before they moved to another nearby called Le Solitaire du Lac.

They were killed as they sat in their BMW in a layby. Zainab, then seven, was shot in the shoulder and clubbed with a pistol by the gunman, but survived. Zeena, then four, escaped unharmed by hiding beneath her dead mother's skirt and was only discovered when police searched the car.

An antique 7.65mm Luger P06 handgun, issued to the Swiss army and police in the 1920s and 1930s was used.

Mr Martin, a former RAF pilot, discovered the murders and said he saw a motorcyclist riding away from the scene shortly beforehand. A French forestry worker also said he saw the motorcyclist, who pulled into the parking spot where the family were murdered.

The e-fit was produced soon after the killings, but was not initially released because of fears the man pictured would go into hiding.

It captures a rare model of a helmet used by French police during the 2000s and was thought to be black or dark in colour. Only 8,000 of the helmets were made in black.